Paul Bartel Movies
American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker Paul Bartel is perhaps best known as the director and star of the quirky sleeper Eating Raoul (1982). Born in New York City, Bartel was a film aficionado since childhood and entered the industry at age 13 working as an assistant animator for UPA. He later studied film at UCLA and while there, made several short animated films and documentaries; for his work as a student actor and playwright, Bartel won several awards. Later he studied at Rome's prestigious Centro Sperimental di Cinematografica on a Fulbright Scholarship; there his graduation film, Progetti, was shown at the Venice Film Festival. Soon after coming back to the U.S., Bartel began working as an assistant director for military films; he then went on to make films for the U.S. government. As a feature filmmaker, Bartel is consistently drawn to the darkly funny, more perverse aspects of life. His provocative directorial debut was Private Parts (1972) which centered on a runaway teenage girl who encounters several residents involved with bizarre sexual practices in her aunt's ramshackle San Francisco hotel. Though it was a box office flop, the film earned Bartel decent notice from critics. He next involved himself with B-movie king Roger Corman and worked for him as both an actor and a second unit photographer. In 1974, he again tried directing with Big Bad Mama. He directed one more film before coming up with the screenplay for Eating Raoul. Directed by and starring Bartel, it is the ghastly but hilarious tale of an average couple who comes up with an unusual scam for making money involving sex for sale and a very large frying pan. Bartel was unable to find a distributor for the film until he entered it in the Los Angeles Film Festival where it generated such acclaim that 20th Century-Fox obtained the distribution rights. The film has since become a cult favorite. After the success of Raoul, Bartel continued directing a variety of films through the 1980s. Notable efforts from this time period include his wild satire of westerns Lust in the Dust (1985) and Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989). In the early '90s, he directed Shelf Life and then began focusing on his acting career and appearing in such films as The Jerky Boys (1994) and Basquiat (1996). He died of a heart attack, following surgery for liver cancer, on May 13, 2000. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 2001
A serious filmmaker takes on a not-so-serious subject, and finds love along the way in this romantic comedy. Katie (Marianne Hagan) is a struggling documentary filmmaker whose career seems to be going nowhere as her 32nd birthday looms on the horizon. While pitching a project about the life of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to a public television outlet, Katie makes the acquaintance of Arlene (Barbara Gulan), a TV producer who offers her another project -- a series on the ups and down of dating and single life. Katie isn't especially interested, especially since her last relationship has soured her on romance in general, but she's in no position to turn down work; with the help of Spider (Mike Dooly), a cameraman who has known Katie for years (and long had a crush on her), she begins following Jed (Dave Gibbs), a handsome but self-centered single guy. Jed has no clue as to how he should behave around women, and most of the dates Katie films are nothing short of disastrous, but the more time she spends with Jed, the more she likes him, and she starts to wonder if perhaps with a little work he could be groomed into a better grade of boyfriend material. Dinner and a Movie also features actor and filmmaker Paul Bartel in one of his final roles; acclaimed singer/songwriter Dar Williams contributed to the musical score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marianne Hagan
A bittersweet satire about Hollywood's bottomless capacity for corruption, Dreamers follows the travails of two friends who leave their small Tennessee town for Tinsletown. Opening with a view of Hollywood through the lens of an Asian tourist's video camera accompanied by the movie-loving tourist's ramblings, the film cuts to Jefferson City, Tennessee, where two boys indulge in fantasies of fleeing to L.A. Several years later, one of those boys, Dave (Jeremy Jordan), is heading west to join his childhood friend Ethan (Mark Ballou) in Hollywood. Ethan has spent the past five years trying unsuccessfully to finish his untitled film, scraping together a living as an Amway salesman and construction worker. Following his arrival, Dave finds brief work on a porn set before being fired, and, as part of an attempt to help Ethan find funding for his movie, loses his virginity to a lusty Beverly Hills housewife (Ruth de Sosa). Dreamers is directed by Chinese native Ann Lu and features the late, great Paul Bartel in one of his last screen roles. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeremy Jordan, Mark Ballou, (more)
- 1998
Armistead Maupin calls the three-story wooden house at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco "my homestead, my Tara." He began his portrait of Barbary Lane life during the '70s in a daily newspaper serial, expanding the material into a series of six novels. PBS aired the original TV miniseries in 1994, but threats and pressures prompted PBS to drop their plans for a follow-up, leaving an unresolved cliffhanger for four years. Several members of the original PBS cast were reunited for this six-part Showtime sequel (adapted from Maupin's second novel in the series), set in San Francisco of 1977. It picks up the threads of the story six weeks after the point where the PBS miniseries ended. When Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney), hoping for romance, and her cynical gay friend Michael (Paul Hopkins) take a Mexican cruise, Mary Ann meets amnesia victim Burke Andrew (Colin Ferguson) and Michael runs into his former lover, Dr. Jon Fielding (William Campbell). Michael's roommate Mona Ramsey (Nina Siemaszko), in a purple haze of pot and angel dust, answers phones at a Reno brothel owned by Mother Mucca (Jackie Burroughs). Mona learns about her lineage and also about Anna Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis), the former Mr. Madrigal. Rich widow Frannie (Diana LeBlanc) finds a cure for her depression at the rural resort Pinus, where society ladies celebrate their 60th birthdays with youthful houseboys. Beauchamp Day (Thomas Gibson) is married to Frannie's pregnant daughter DeDe (Barbara Garrick), but Beauchamp isn't the father. Locations include San Francisco, Montreal (substituting for some areas of San Francisco), and Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Premiered June 7, 1998 on Showtime. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Linney, Olympia Dukakis, (more)
- 1997
Three makes for a dangerous crowd in this darkly comic crime story. Convicted murderer Lewis (Salvator Xuereb) breaks out of prison with Clark (Dan Gunther), who is doing time for computer fraud. The escapees are heading to New Mexico in search of a secret map to a gold mine that was hidden by a prisoner who recently met with a fatal accident. Clark, however, doesn't like Lewis, and Lewis only has Clark around because he's functionally illiterate and needs help reading maps. Meanwhile, George (Rose McGowan), a young woman who never speaks, has hit the highway after lifting the $10,000 that she and her boyfriend Fred (Art LaFleur) were given for a shipment of drugs that they never actually delivered. After Lewis impulsively shoots one person too many, Clark strikes out on his own, and while hitchhiking, he gets picked up by George, who has stolen a car and has a poisonous snake for protection. George learns about Clark's secret gold mine, and eager to get on his good side, she seduces him. While George spells "trouble" so clearly that she should have the word tattooed on her forehead, Clark falls for her like the proverbial ton of bricks; Lewis also finds "romance" of his own with a sleazy woman he meets in a trailer park before meeting up with Clark at the location of the hidden map. Deciding that they work better as a team, Lewis and Clark head out to Mexico in search of the gold, with George tagging along, but what they don't know is that Fred has been following her, convinced that George still has his money. This was Rose McGowan and Salvator Xuereb's second film together, after appearing in Gregg Araki's post-modern road movie The Doom Generation. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rose McGowan, Salvator Xuereb, (more)
- 1996
Bored Anita (Joanna Pacula) wants to escape small-town life but finds herself stuck in the middle of nowhere until her scientist husband finishes his research in a local swamp. Thus, Anita is understandably thrilled when brother and sister John and Janet Jones move to town and make life interesting; although John is a bit of a nutter, his sister is fun and lively, and she and Anita become fast friends. Unfortunately, things get weird and bodies start piling up, and Anita begins to suspect that maybe her new pal isn't who she claims to be. Paul Bartel and Annabelle Gurwitch co-star. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joanna Pacula, Paul Bartel, (more)
- 1995
The struggle of country music's mother-daughter duo The Judds is told in this made-for-television drama. Kathleen York stars as Naomi Judd (then known as Diana Judd) a single mother of two daughters, who turned to music as way to help positively influence her increasingly belligerent and rebellious eldest daughter Wynonna (then known as Christina). The movie chronicles Naomi's struggle to provide for her daughters (the youngest is actress Ashley Judd), the singing duo's rise from Nashville fame to national celebrity, the ups and downs that accompanied a working family relationship, and Naomi's eventual retirement from the music business. The movie was based on Naomi's autobiography Love Can Build A Bridge. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- 1995
Bare breasts abound in this black comedy that centers on a crooked plastic surgeon and abortionist and his nurse/lover who run the shady American Beauty Institute. There the two entice young women to come as patients. The patients are then killed and sent to the sicko Morganfeller, the richest man on the planet with a taste for necrophilia. The two use the money he pays them to help restore the Bulgarian king to his throne. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1993
In this behind-the-scenes thriller, a movie actress finds herself accused of hacking up her producer. She tries to flee with two lovers preparing to marry. The three get into all sorts of trouble that ends with the death of the fiancee. Once again, the actress finds herself accused of the crime, but did she do it? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Fiorentino, C. Thomas Howell, (more)
Paul Bartel directed this film version of a performance art piece by O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein, and Jim Turner, who play Tina, Pam, and Scotty -- three grown-up kids who have spent the last thirty years sealed off in a backyard family bomb shelter. A prologue explains what happened: in 1963, when John Kennedy is assassinated, a typical middle-class family from Anaheim retreat to their backyard bomb shelter, afraid that the commies are coming. In 1993, they are still there -- even Mom and Dad, who have since died, but the bones are laid out nicely on their bed. The brother and two sisters, in worn-out clothing, amuse themselves by playing silly little games (something called "Egyptian Fantasy" with Ken as the Pharaoh), engaging in absurd rounds of role playing (Tina as a high-school tease), and hurling senseless rebukes at one another ("I can't hear you. I've got a set of encyclopedias up my butt"). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein, (more)
- 1992
In this documentary, a variety of directors and actors, many of them well known, give answers to questions the viewer never hears -- answers which, on the face of it, call into question the validity of the whole filmmaking enterprise and the culture which spawned it. The narration asserts that the theme is "art versus enterprise," but critics objected that the film is not sufficiently focused to back up that claim. It does, however, reveal a strong anti-Hollywood bias. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oliver Stone
A gentle film critic hooks up with a violent drifter in this HIV-positive road movie, which marked the emergence of writer/director Gregg Araki into the art house mainstream. Jon (Craig Gilmore) has just learned he has the virus that causes AIDS. Still in a state of shock, he stumbles through his usual routine -- until he meets Luke (Mike Dytri), a hunky, gun-toting hitchhiker who has just stolen a car from a pair of homicidal lesbians and shot a trio of would-be gay bashers. Against his better judgment, Jon lets Luke stay at his place and soon finds himself drawn into the nihilistic stranger's world; it doesn't hurt that Luke is also HIV-positive and hot to get inside Jon's pants. Things take a Bonnie and Clyde turn when Luke kills a policeman. The pair go on the lam, first to San Francisco, then all over the western United States. Jon keeps his best friend, Darcy (Darcy Marta), apprised of his situation via a series of ever more infrequent collect calls. But as the road trip continues, Jon becomes increasingly disillusioned with Luke's belief that since they're doomed to die, they should lead consequence-free lives. Like Araki's later movies, The Living End is peppered with pop culture detritus and features a soundtrack heavy on industrial and alternative music -- in this case Psychic TV, Coil, and Fred Gianelli. Marta is a veteran of Araki's earlier Three Bewildered People in the Night, while several other cast members, including Gilmore, would go on to appear in the director's Totally F***ed Up. The Living End's many cameos include performance artist Johanna Went, Eating Raoul director Paul Bartel, Warhol associate Mary Woronov, and Peter Grame, star of the obscure European film Das Gluck Beim Haendewaschen. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mike Dytri, Craig Gilmore, (more)
- 1990
This detective movie is set in Hollywood, circa 1949. Hard-bitten detective Dan Turner gets entangled with an extortionist after he begins looking into the life of a movie mogul's beautiful wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The 1987 portmanteau comedy feature Amazon Women on the Moon lampoons several film genres in general and the 1954 sci-fi cheapie Cat Women of the Moon in particular. Other sketches in Amazon Women include an opening bit with Arsenio Hall; a vignette titled "Son of the Invisible Man" wherein a naked Ed Begley Jr. runs around in full view of the nonplussed supporting cast; the It's Alive parody "Hospital", which offers the spectacle of Michelle Pfeiffer giving birth to Mr. Potato Head; and a Siskel & Ebert takeoff, featuring Arche Hahn as a TV viewer whose entire life is given a "thumbs down." Directed by several hands, including Joe Dante, Carl Gottleib, Peter Horton, John Landis, and Robert K. Weiss, Amazon Women on the Moon also features a satire of the Kroger G. Babb school of "sex hygiene" exploitation cheapies, with syphilis victim Carrie Fisher being counseled by unctuous doctor Paul Bartel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosanna Arquette, Ralph Bellamy, (more)
- 1987
Based on a 1983 novel by Dan Jenkins, Baja Oklahoma is set sometime in the 1950s. Texas barmaid Lesley Ann Warren wants more than anything to be a rich and famous country-western songwriter. Unfortunately, she spends most of her time sorting out her many dead-end romances. Just when she thinks she's ready for the big move to Nashville, along comes her erstwhile old flame Peter Coyote. Deftly stealing every scene she's in is Swoosie Kurtz as Warren's hot-to-trot best pal. Willie Nelson, who cowrote the film's title song with Dan Jenkins, makes a guest appearance, along with such other C&W favorites as Emmylou Harris and Bob Wills Jr. Actress Alice Krige is superb as songstress Patsy Cline-far better, incidentally, than Jessica Lange in Sweet Dreams. Playing the supporting role of Warren's daughter is Julia Roberts, who was later touted as the film's star when Baja Oklahoma was released to video. Made for the HBO cable service, the film debuted February 20, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lesley Ann Warren, Peter Coyote, (more)
- 1985
Cult fave Paul Bartel is the one recognizable actor in Baring it All. The scene is a group therapy session, populated by repressed, withdrawn individuals. As the session progresses, the participants shed their inhibitions-and everything else. Before long, group therapy becomes grope therapy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
If the Perils of Pauline were set in a campy New York City with a dash of trash added in, Not for Publication would result, though the awful jokes and kinky characters are not going to be entertaining to everyone. Lois (Nancy Allen) is a reporter at a sleazoid newspaper, a paragon of yellow journalism that she is determined to turn back to its first incarnation as The New York Enforcer, a better paper. The not-so-good Mayor Franklyn (Laurence Luckinbill) adopts Lois as his personal assistant when she bursts into his office one day and strongly advises him to cut the pressure to shut down porn shops or he will lose the vote of New York's youth. She hires a photographer (David Naughton) to work in the mayor's office, planning to use his skills for her tabloid paper -- but then a quirky menage à trois arises between the mayor, the photographer, and Lois. After some undercover sleuthing in Long Island, Lois connects the mayor to various robberies that have occurred in the city and thinks of a way to bring back the New York Enforcer and handle the mayor at the same time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nancy Allen, David Naughton, (more)
- 1982
First, a crazed and fighting Malcolm (Peter Jason) is hauled off to an asylum by two men just that much tougher than he is, and then this film jumps ahead several years to Halloween at Malcolm's old home. His wife, Joan (Carrie Snodgress), and her live-in lover, Richard (David Carradine), are about to go out, while son Christopher (Chris Graver) stays home with Linda (Jackelyn Giroux), a soon-to-be unhappy babysitter. When Linda and Christopher are alone, the chubby little devil decides to play endless practical jokes on the poor woman: he "chops" his finger off, he "kills" himself, and commits all sorts of make-believe mayhem until she sits him down and tells him the story of the hapless boy who cried wolf just a bit too often. Meanwhile, dressed as a nurse, the crazy Malcolm has managed to escape from his confinement in the asylum, and as he makes his way through the streets in drag (it is Halloween, who's to notice?) he finally arrives at his former house, lusting for vengeance, just when little Christopher's pranks are reaching their worst. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackelyn Giroux, Peter Jason, (more)
- 1978
Documentary filmmaker Christian Blackwood, whose previous subjects have included John Huston and Thelonious Monk, aims his sights at low-budget movie maven Roger Corman. Hollywood's Wild Angel traces Corman from his screenwriting days to his earliest directorial efforts at the newly-formed American International Pictures in the mid-1950s. As Corman's fame and reputation grows, he gives a leg-up to the careers of dozens of aspiring filmmakers-so long as they don't bother him about such details as money and working hours. Among the Corman associates and protegees interviewed are David Carradine, Peter Fonda, Ron Howard, Paul Bartel, Martin Scorcese, Joe Dante and Peter Bogdanovich. And, of course, this 58-minute documentary offers generous samples of such Corman classics as A Bucket of Blood, Little Shop of Horrors, The Trip, The Wild Angels and the Edgar Allan Poe film cycle of the early 1960s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Cult hero Paul Bartel directed this low-budget satire in which America's passion for cars, violence, and sporting events are finally brought together in one convenient package. In the not-so-distant future, the United States has become a totalitarian regime overseen by the charming but sinister Mr. President (Sandy McCallum), who, in order to satisfy the masses' need for entertainment (and to quench their thirst for violence), has created a new national sport -- the Death Race, a nationwide road rally in which the winner is not determined by who finishes first, but by who scores the most points along the way by running over hapless pedestrians. Aspiring champions Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone), Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov), Nero the Hero (Martin Kove), and Matilda the Hun (Roberta Collins) are all looking to take the top honors away from Frankenstein (David Carradine), a half-man/half-machine who has been built to be the best racer on Earth and can outrun and outkill anyone on the circuit. However, not everyone likes the Death Race, and revolutionary leader Thomasina Paine (Harriet Medin) wants to sabotage the event in the name of restoring democracy; her plan is to foil Frankenstein's expected victory by smuggling her daughter Annie (Simone Griffeth) into Frankenstein's race car as his navigator. Featuring David Carradine at the height of his Kung Fu fame (and Sylvester Stallone a year before Rocky), Death Race 2000 was a major drive-in hit in 1975; Bartel and Carradine teamed up for another road race movie, Cannonball, a year later, and a semi-sequel, Death Sport, appeared in 1978. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Carradine, Simone Griffeth, (more)
- 1967
Almost 30 years before Peter Weir brought us The Truman Show, cinematic cult figure Paul Bartel (of Eating Raoul and Lust in the Dust fame) was the 30-year-old auteur of this half-hour film, a somewhat sleazy bit of surrealism on a similar subject. Amy Vane plays a woman whose every move is recorded on film. She didn't ask for this scrutiny: the woman is the victim of a voyeuristic director, who contrives to hide cameras wherever she goes and show the results in a theater. It is just as warped as it sounds, but it has its own peculiar appeal. The videocassette version of The Secret Cinema includes The Naughty Nurse, a 7-minute chunk of erotica that is best ignored. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
William Shakespeare's classic tale is brought to the screen for the third time in ten years in this modernized interpretation. Writer/director Michael Almereyda updates the story to the present day, where Hamlet (Ethan Hawke) is a struggling filmmaker whose personal and familial trials are set against the machinations of a huge production firm called the Denmark Corporation. Joining Hamlet as he seeks revenge for the death of his father and the wedding of his mother to an enemy are Kyle MacLachlan as Claudius, Julia Stiles as Ophelia, Bill Murray as Polonius, Sam Shepard as the ghost of Hamlet's father, Diane Venora as Gertrude, Steve Zahn as Rosencrantz, and Dechen Thurman as Guildenstern. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, (more)
Tommy O'Haver wrote and directed this gay lifestyle comedy about aspiring photographer Billy (Sean P. Hayes) who encounters rocky romantic roads intersecting among an assortment of Los Angelenos -- handsome Fernando (Armando Valdes-Kennedy), who has a steady boyfriend; blond waiter Gabriel (Brad Rowe), who has a San Francisco girlfriend; Billy's roommate Georgiana (Meredith Scott Lynn); and pal Perry (Richard Ganoung). Entranced by Gabriel, Billy takes him on as a model and introduces him at gallery openings and parties, only to see Gabriel leave for better modeling assignments with well-known fashion photographer Rex Webster (Paul Bartel). Fantasy sequences parody Vertigo, '30s musicals, and From Here to Eternity. Shown at 1998 film festivals, including Berlin and Sundance. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Hayes, Brad Rowe, (more)
Escape from L.A. finds Kurt Russell once again in the role of Snake, which he played in the 1981 film, Escape from New York. Los Angeles has finally had the really big earthquake everyone was afraid of, and what remains is now an island. Because the country's ultra-righteous President-for-Life (Cliff Roberton) wants it that way, all the weirdos and freaks that previously inhabited New York in large numbers, and the rest of the U.S. in smaller concentrations, have been quarantined on the island of L.A. The president has Snake taken from the nice, decent prison he was living in for a special mission in L.A. The president's daughter has joined the resistance movement determined to overthrow his one-man rule, and has stolen his secret "black box" (a doomsday machine) to boot. Snake is given a poison which will kill him in a few hours unless he returns to the president for the antidote. His mission is to recover the black box and kill the president's daughter. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kurt Russell, Stacy Keach, (more)
